One of the ways the Rubicon Project sets itself apart is by the aggressive metrics and goals we set, not only for ourselves, but also our partners and customers. The hard work continues to pay off! For the third quarter in a row we’ve blown past our own aggressive benchmarks. Company growth has been amazing on several fronts; we bring on more heavy-hitting publishers every day, we are seeing rapid growth with our network partnerships, and continue to build out the Rubicon Project family by adding top-of-class industry players to our team. As a way to show our awesome, hard working employees how much they’re appreciated, we planned a company outing to the Dodger’s game last week in honor of knocking our second quarter goals “out of the park.” We boarded a charter bus, had an unbelievable suite, ate a few too many hot dogs, and had plenty to laugh about the next day. Check out the pics… go Dodgers!

   Tags: Company news, Hiring      > Add Comment

Today the Wall Street Journal (referenced by a post by PaidContent.org) ran an article about U.S. Websites awakening to the revenue potential of overseas ad dollars. An excerpt:

“U.S. Web sites are waking up to a sobering reality: A huge share of their traffic now comes from overseas, but they are struggling to make money from it. Now, Internet companies big and small are scrambling their business models to try to cash in on foreign markets they have largely ignored. The internationalization of online traffic in the U.S. has accelerated at a pace that has surprised even some people in the Internet business. Many U.S. sites now draw more than half of their audiences from international visitors but generate only about 5% of their revenue from that traffic…”

We’re thrilled to see more media focus examining the value of this traffic. Articles like this help shed light on the rapid rise of international advertiser inventory, traffic volume and by highlighting challenges publishers face in monetizing that traffic.

The points raised mirror some of the trends we are seeing from an increase in traffic from international IP addresses across our spectrum of Rubicon Certified Inventory. As referenced in our Q1 Market Report we’ve long recognized enormous potential with monetizing International ad traffic. As part of our ad network development team I know that we are hard at work forging relationships with the key players overseas to solve this very problem. With strong network partnerships like Adjug and Oridian we look forward to more discussion, more impressions and more campaigns targeted internationally in Q3.

   Tags: Ad networks, Company news, Customer service, LA tech scene      > Add Comment

Every year Fast Company magazine highlights the most innovative companies worldwide that take business to new creative heights. the Rubicon Project is a contender for Fast 50 Reader Favorites, those companies that are voted the most innovative by the community. You’ll see we already have a number of fans that have come out to voice support about the company and our mission but we always like more! Voting ends July 15th.

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One of the things I love about working at the Rubicon Project is the smart and insightful people I’m surrounded by every day.  Our CEO, Frank Addante, just published a post on his personal blog titled “Fear of Success” and I had to share it on our corporate site as it contained a message that I think will resonate with just about everyone.

It all started with an innocent Twitter update from Frank looking for new ideas for a blog post. One of our engineers, Ian, responded with this gem:

“Fear of failure can often paralyze a company, but sometimes so can ‘fear of success’. I don’t imagine that’s ever slowed you down, but I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on it.

Frank took Ian’s suggestion to heart and addressed some hard lessons he learned from being a victim of his own success that caused him to lose, and then re-find, behaviors that in-part make him the stellar business leader he is. Below an excerpt I think many of us can relate to.  Give the whole post a read. It’s worth the time and an excellent reminder to us all.

“…The problem is similar to the difference between children and adults. Children run around with little fear. Adults are more cautious. The reason I changed my behavior is because I was a victim of my own success. With success came expectations. Before, when I was the “young kid in the room” I could make mistakes because it was expected, I could say the wrong thing and it was OK and if I did anything great or impressive it was a surprise. All of a sudden, there was this inherent pressure to perform. I was no longer the “young kid” in the room that got lucky a couple of times. I became the “experienced entrepreneur” that people actually expected something from. People expected results. They expected me to say something smart. They expected the right answers. These expectations clouded my ability to simply trust my gut and I felt that I needed to have more logical support for my decisions. It slowed me down…

   Tags: Entrepreneurship      > Add Comment

At the Rubicon Project we think that giving back to the community is an important part of our growing culture. Every quarter the entire company takes a work day and volunteers with a local organization. In this round of community service we worked with the fine folks at the Dream Center in Los Angeles. The Dream Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping inner-cities by providing food, clothing, shelter, life rehabilitation, education and job training, and donates food to those in need.

The team helped sort and package up food the Dream Center received form countless food donation centers and then went on ride a-longs to help hand out. It was a very humbling and rewarding experience and all of us walked away feeling that much more appreciative for what we have. Check out the pictures below for a snapshot of our day.

   Tags: Company news, Customer service, Fun, Success stories      > Add Comment